How to talk to a young rebel and whether it’s worth trying to keep your child in school at all costs.
From this article you will learn:
- Can a child drop out of school according to Russian laws?
- What happens if a teenager simply stops going to school?
- Why do teenagers often want to drop out of school?
- What parents definitely shouldn’t do when their child is about to drop out of school.
Is it possible to drop out of school in Russia?
Yes, but there are nuances.
The Federal Law “On Education in the Russian Federation” states that a person must complete basic general education by the age of 18. This means that everyone must legally complete nine grades. However, theoretically, it is possible to leave school after turning 15. To do so, a teenager must obtain consent:
- parents;
- commission on minors and protection of their rights;
- local government body in the field of education.
The key point is that this “loophole” only allows for leaving school, not discontinuing basic general education. In practice, this means that teenagers are allowed, with parental consent, to transfer to evening school, or to receive distance learning or home schooling.
“It’s practically impossible to drop out of school before ninth grade: by law, parents and the state are obligated to provide basic education. And if a child stops attending school, the school is obligated to notify the guardianship and trusteeship authorities. In the worst case, parental rights can even be terminated. And it’s crucial to tell children about this, because they don’t know about it.”
However, a child’s statement about wanting to quit school shouldn’t be ignored. The first thing to do is to find out the reason for this desire.
What are the most common reasons why teenagers want to drop out of school?
We’ve identified six common reasons for radical thoughts about leaving school.
Reason one: boredom
In 2022, researchers from the research company Ipsos surveyed 1,217 Russian schoolchildren from large cities. It turned out that only 26% of middle school students report enjoying going to class.
The problem is often that children are forced to learn and memorize things they can easily look up online. A logical question arises: why should we memorize the strict dates of the Battle of the Ice? Why should I cram the actual length of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France?
Another problem is that textbook physics or chemistry are often inferior to TikToks with exciting experiments and explanations like “What happens if lightning strikes a playground?”
When a person doesn’t just receive pure knowledge, but sees how scientific information is reflected and applied in real life, learning becomes much more engaging. A schoolchild realizes, “Aha, playgrounds often have rubber surfaces and plastic slides, and if lightning strikes them, no one will be hurt.” Thus, a teenager understands that there are materials that don’t conduct electricity. With a textbook, the same information would simply have to be memorized mechanically.
Not all teenagers understand this injustice and can formulate a clear grievance against the education system. But many intuitively sense that they’re being taught the wrong things, and not in the most creative way. This is where rebellions like “I’m bored in this stupid school” begin.
“Teenagers (especially young ones) often say, ‘What’s the point of all this? Why do I need to learn all this? Why do I need so much information?’ The solution is to transfer them to a school they know is interesting and has a modern approach to education. Not everyone can afford this. In such cases, it’s important to have explanatory conversations: for example, discuss the skills the teenager is learning at school and how they can be useful in life. Also, draw connections between the lessons and what the child aspires to become.”
Svetlana gives this example: many children who dream of becoming artists don’t realize that they need to take a literature exam to enroll in art school. And many fifth- and sixth-grade students don’t realize that they’ll have to take math and Russian anyway.
It’s the parents’ job to gently explain: “Yes, you might never need Russian again because autocorrect is everywhere. But it’s not omnipotent, and you, not your smartphone or laptop, will be the one taking the exam, meeting new people, and communicating with them.”
Reason two: a feeling of global failure
It’s not uncommon for a straight-A student in elementary school to suddenly become a C student. In this context, children often feel like foolish losers who haven’t lived up to adults’ expectations and have failed at everything in life. What seems trivial to parents, such as failing computer science or biology, can become a tragedy and a life-defining failure for a teenager.
In such cases, it’s important, firstly, to remind your child that you love them, regardless of their grades or the color of their diploma. Secondly, to emphasize that it’s okay to be ignorant about something. Not all successful people on the planet have a perfect command of algebra or can easily distinguish a ribosome from a lysosome.
“Teenagers can be embarrassed even to admit to themselves that they don’t understand something. And in class, the awkwardness and guilt over their ‘stupidity’ weighs even more heavily. It’s important for parents to keep a close eye on their child and periodically check whether this perception of themselves has developed. Mathematics is especially often a nasty bummer for self-esteem, because one topic leads to another: if you don’t understand one, you’ll fall behind in everything else. The solution is tutoring and helping your child regain their confidence .”
Reason three: bullying
In 2024, researchers at the Center for Inclusive Education Development at the Russian Academy of Education found that one in five teenagers in Russia had experienced bullying, and one in three struggled to find common ground with their peers.
What to do if your child is the victim of bullying requires a comprehensive approach involving the child, teachers, administration, and sometimes a psychologist. There’s no single, proven strategy for persuading a bullied teenager not to drop out of school. The key is to be there, support them, and remind them that they shouldn’t blame themselves for someone else’s cruelty.
Reason four: fatigue
Studying is hard. Especially for teenagers, who are in the process of developing their self-image, experiencing hormonal changes, and experiencing emotional and physical developmental leaps. All of this is exhausting enough, and then you add on top of that: 6-8 lessons a day, dreading exams, and those dreaded early mornings.
In a 2021 study by the Higher School of Economics, 72% of schoolchildren said they felt exhausted due to studying, extracurricular activities, homework, and worries about the Unified State Exam.
The solution is to create a schedule that allows time for walks, phone time, and idle time. Time “unproductively spent” can sometimes become a reliable barrier to burnout.
By the way, don’t put too much pressure on them, like, “You’re so unorganized, you should go to bed at a normal time!” During adolescence, the circadian clock gets out of sync , so most teenagers have a physiological problem falling asleep early and waking up at dawn. So, don’t wake a high school student on a sacred weekend: sleep deprivation is a serious factor that contributes to chronic fatigue and exacerbates stress.
Reason five: first love
If it’s unrequited or lacks a happy ending, the world falls apart. And that’s natural. Teenagers’ emotions are cranked up to maximum capacity, especially in the realm of romantic feelings: faced with excitement, serious attraction, and falling in love for the first time, it’s easy to lose your head and push everything else to the periphery.
Often, a failed first relationship becomes a reason to ask to be transferred to a different school, class, or even drop out altogether. And in such scenarios, as always, it’s important to have a thorough and frequent conversation with your teenager.
“Yes, love lifts you up, but it can also destroy you. But whether it’s worth leaving your ex’s class is debatable. We’ll have to discuss what’s worse: staying among friends, familiar teachers, and classes and experiencing this painful coexistence, or going somewhere where adapting to a new group, people, and teachers awaits. Furthermore, it’s important to emphasize that transferring to another school won’t solve the problem of pain and suffering. Not seeing doesn’t mean you stop loving.”
A successful and happy first love doesn’t guarantee you won’t want to quit school. Many teenagers, thrown headlong into their feelings, are willing to do anything just to be with their crush every minute. And some are eager to accomplish “heroic feats”: I’ll quit school, go to work, we’ll be independent and always together!
Svetlana Smirnova again calls for explanations to teenagers:
- “Working here and now is, of course, good, but because of it, you lose the opportunities that education gives.”
- “Yes, everything is wonderful and easy now, but will you be able to maintain it if everyone around you goes further, achieves more, and you remain at your current level without a certificate?”
- “Finally, if a person is with you only for gifts and always expects them from you, then the likelihood that he will leave you is very high in itself.”
Reason six: conflict with teachers
When children leave elementary school, they suddenly transition to a fundamentally new learning model: now they have not one teacher and one familiar class, but ten different teachers, each with their own character, favorites, and demands.
Teenagers are already prone to internal and external conflicts with the world as they search for their identity, their values, and appropriate behavior patterns. And facing a crowd of new adults who directly influence their lives and self-image increases the likelihood of conflict exponentially.
“A biased, overbearing, or yelling teacher is a challenge for a child. And a reluctance to interact with this teacher at all is natural. The solution is to talk to the teacher directly, and if necessary, to the principal. It’s also important to talk to your teenager about not taking the teacher’s behavior personally: ‘Yes, this is an unpleasant person, but you shouldn’t let them decide whether you go to school or not, whether you like studying or not.'”
What parents should definitely NOT do if their child wants to drop out of school
Yelling, accusing them of ingratitude, and punishing them with the silent treatment or isolation from friends. All of this is equally cruel and pointless: a traumatized and dissatisfied child will feel even more alone and unhappy. And this certainly won’t increase their desire to return to school.
Svetlana Smirnova reminds us: it’s important to talk to teenagers, respectfully and respectfully, and respect personal boundaries. Of course, dropping out of school is a controversial idea, and parents have every right to point this out. But they also have a responsibility to figure out the problem and help the teenager overcome it, even if it’s unseen.
Below we’ll look at three more actions you shouldn’t take when trying to get your teenager back on track with school.
Mistake #1
Motivate with abstract and unrealistic goals
Svetlana emphasizes: don’t try to convince teenagers that “studies → a great university → a great job” is a guaranteed path to success. Teens understand that this isn’t true, and a gold medal isn’t a ticket to a bright future.
“‘Oh, my God, what’s the point of all this? Why study? I don’t want to go to school!’—with these cries, a teenager begins searching for internal motivation. And parental arguments like, ‘You have to study for the sake of studying, to be highly developed, educated, and successful,’ don’t work.”
But appealing to a teenager’s specific interests is a potentially effective option. If you want to be a photographer, let’s look at the different types of photographers, what jobs are available, and what skills are needed. It’s quite possible that school can offer valuable insights for any profession.
Mistake #2
Prejudice against colleges
College is a worthy stepping stone to professional development. And children who feel bored at school are likely better off going to a place where teenagers are treated more like fully-fledged adults. The process of obtaining a secondary vocational education generally requires more responsibility and independence than schooling.
“Most teenagers who don’t want to go to school go to college quite happily. And there they gain a real profession, not just general knowledge. It’s an important start and a worthy alternative to school.”
Mistake #3
Immediately transfer to homeschooling
Svetlana notes that homeschooling isn’t for everyone. Many teenagers, begging their parents to switch to homeschooling, think something like, “Now I can legitimately stay home and spend hours playing video games.” But, of course, that’s not true.
Homeschooled children still need to take tests, quizzes, and prepare for exams. And if parents are often at work and the child isn’t particularly adept at time management, self-study can be a failure. It can even lead to that same feeling: “I’m stupid, I don’t understand anything, I’ll never succeed in life.”
In 2021, Norwegian researchers Trude Havik and Jo Magne Ingol asked teachers to evaluate how online learning affected their students. Most teachers found that, on average, students felt less motivated, happy, and engaged during home schooling, especially if parents were absent for most of the day or had little influence on their child’s daily routine.
Mistake #4
Take everything upon yourself
It’s important to remember: not everything that happens to a child is the parents’ fault. Even the most attentive and supportive parents can find themselves in a situation where a teenager says they don’t want to go to school anymore. It’s normal to not know what to do in such a situation. It’s also perfectly normal to seek help from a psychologist.
“Teenagers are sometimes unwilling to honestly tell their parents the reasons behind their actions because parents are often hurt, angry, worried, guilty, or ashamed. A psychologist, on the other hand, is neutral and can handle any level of awkwardness and difficulty—sometimes it’s easier to share with them. The argument, ‘I’m bored at school,’ seems ridiculous to many teenagers themselves. And admitting it to parents is embarrassing, but it’s perfectly acceptable to a psychologist.”
Svetlana reminds us: mom and dad aren’t just managers and organizers in their children’s lives, they’re also the closest people. Teenagers really need parental support that’s non-punitive and non-controlling. When a child is confused, facing strong feelings, and doesn’t understand themselves, they feel like their life is irrevocably ruined and there’s no way out. And sometimes just one conversation can change everything and show: we will find a solution, because you’re not alone.